dreams drifting with the tide
by ArgentNoelle
Summary: Bruce is fascinated by the Joker. It's inexplicable. He always has been. [takes place in "Joker (2019)" movie continuity, but since it's set way post-movie & with actual Batman in it, I thought I'd put it in the more general Batman section][slight batjokes][character study]


**notes**

title inspired by a line from Frank Sinatra's "Somewhere In The Night"

Future!fic, Bruce/Batman POV. ambiguous/implied batjokes

TAKES PLACE IN "JOKER (2019)" UNIVERSE :)

Literally ever since I saw this movie I wanted to write something because I have a feeling that the Batman & Joker dynamic with those two would end up being so unusual/interesting

* * *

_dreams drifting with the tide_

Bruce has had years to come to terms with it by the time he became Batman. The strange man who had walked by outside the walls of the manor only days before his parents died. He remembers the scared reaction of Alfred; the way his father had gotten so angry, his mother so protective, when they heard—and then, of course, there is the fact that Arthur Fleck had become the Joker; had perhaps purposely, perhaps inadvertently, caused the death of his parents during the riots to come. It's something Bruce found out only later, staring at the frozen images plastered on newspapers, staring at the man under the recording cameras from when he had first made his debut; watching, analyzing, trying to pick apart every piece of the mystery, like a man sitting on land trying to understand the sea.

He's never brought it up to Alfred: perhaps it was too obvious.

In retrospect, of course, he understands how deeply unsettled they all were by the way Fleck had been acting, the way he had so easily lured Bruce to the edge of the grounds, the closeness between them, the flowers. Sometimes he thinks he can still remember the slight warm roughness of his fingers in that moment when the Joker (but he hadn't been the Joker yet) pulled his mouth up into a smile.

And it should have been terrifying.

But what he remembers from that moment isn't feeling scared. It's an ocean of quiet. In the midst of a dreary October day, overcast as all days in Gotham seem to be, still not quite cold enough that anyone would fight him about going out to play all alone—not that he had asked.

Not that they had quite noticed.

It wasn't that he was ever neglected. Bruce has enough memories, carefully hoarded, like the pearls he keeps in a box, picked up at the crime scene, when it had really sunk in at last that the bodies weren't going to move.

It had been the middle of the riots. The streets were on fire, the police overworked; no cops were around to hear a single gunshot in an alley. Bruce remembers the gunshot, of course, and the falling, and the shock; it never leaves his mind. Probably never will. It's like a record on repeat—stuck with the needle in the groove. But he also remembers after. Remembers the deepening cold that no fires from far outside the alley could have ever lit. Remembers, methodically, leaning down and picking up every pearl he could find, counting them all, sticking them into his pocket. Some were nearly clean—others wet from the ground, filthy, covered in mud and worse, or in blood. He had picked them all up—wiped them on the edge of his coat—and put them in his pocket. He doesn't remember thinking. The motions had merely come to him, as if it were the only conceivable thing to do.

He hadn't moved. Part of him, the rational part he supposes, had considered leaving the alley; going back to the theater—it was just around the corner, after all. He would probably make it. And if he didn't: well. Did it really matter. And finding a phone; calling Alfred.

But it had seemed inconceivable to leave.

He'd grown tired eventually, and with the sirens still wearing, the shouts still going on, he had curled up between the bodies of his parents and fallen asleep.

That's where the police had finally found him the next day. They'd thought he was dead at first. Jumped and swore when he opened his eyes and looked at them. They stared at him as though something about him scared them more than the bodies. He had taken it in, filed the thought away for later. It wasn't new.

People tended to be unsettled by Bruce.

So when he's in a contemplative mood, he can still go and open that box of good memories, and hold them, ever so carefully, in mind like he's handling a pearl, and put them back when he's done. But his parents had been busy people, and he'd been a quiet child. He'd overheard many conversations he was never supposed to, just because he'd walked into a room hours before and stayed, still as a statue, in the corner. It had been a game to him: trying to see if he could become invisible. And he'd known the grounds of the Manor inside and out. But the places he tended to frequent the most were at the very edge of the property, near the walls, near the gates, because it felt like it belonged to no one.

That was where he had been playing when the clown appeared.

The quiet; yes. That's what Bruce remembers. The clown had played with him, catching his eye. He hadn't been unsettled by the way Bruce merely stood and stared at him, and Bruce had decided that he liked that. And when he knelt down and introduced himself, Bruce had not felt scared, even though he knew full well he wasn't supposed to talk to strangers. What he remembers is the softness in Fleck's eyes when he smiled at Bruce; the way he said, "that's better," when he pulled up the corners of his mouth, forceful but gentle, like he wanted Bruce to be happy too. Like he would stop at nothing to make that true.

It baffled Bruce, somewhat. That this man, who was a stranger, would care if Bruce was happy.

Alfred made him give back the flowers. Bruce hadn't protested. Bruce had known, by then, that even if he had made Alfred let him keep it, his parents would have taken it away. Something about what Arthur had done _wasn't right_.

He'd liked the flowers.

Bruce has had years to come to terms with it, but he isn't sure he has. It should be easy enough to hate the man, by now. After everything he's done. But he can't. It's like he's still standing at the bars at the edge of Wayne Manor, knowing he should be scared. The Joker is insane. He's a murderer. He may, or may not, have planned the murder of Bruce's parents.

Bruce doesn't know. He's never asked.

He's afraid Joker would tell him the truth.

But even after all he has done, and keeps doing; when Bruce has followed the trail of bodies to their conclusion and it is just them in the night, with the city a dark velvet mystery beneath them, all its anger and hopelessness and broken sharp edges become in softness and glitter and the streets like an innumerable network of shining rivers above which, on the rooftops, they look on upon, he still smiles that same smile at Bruce: not the one plastered over every photo, not the one everyone associates with the Clown Prince of Crime. It's something softer and gentler, neither sad nor happy but merely quiet.

"So, Batsy…" he says, and does a little pirouette at the side of the roof, his feet dancing across the edge like he were not flirting with death but rather had already said his vows long ago, "you've caught me again."

"Come down from there, Joker," Bruce says. He is fairly certain the Joker won't fall. He is entirely certain that if the Joker dared to fall, he would be able to catch him in time. But there's still something about that spot, about that image, that entire in-between-ness that reminds him of things long lost, things that drift out of sight. Something that makes him hold out a hand as he asks.

"Oh, you're no fun," Joker says, taking his hand, carefully, and tossing his head; his curls flying out behind him; he grins slyly at Bruce and looks at him: up, and down, with a twinkle that could be described as lascivious, if it weren't so unutterably fond. He jumps down, then, onto the rooftop proper. Back off the edge. He doesn't let go.

Neither does Bruce.

.

.

.


End file.
